Five microsatellite markers were developed for the snow crab ( Chionoecetes opilio ) and polymerase chain reaction conditions and/or primer sequences of three previously developed microsatellites were adapted for fluorescent labelling analysis. All loci were analysed in 449 individuals from 11 sampling sites in the northwest Atlantic. The high degree of polymorphism exhibited by these microsatellites (mean of 34 alleles per locus and mean observed heterozygosity of 0.76) suggests that they will be suitable for spatial and temporal genetic analysis of C. opilio populations.

Understanding free surface flow of mine tailings is necessary to plan deposition operations in tailings' storage facilities (TSF), and is important to predict the consequences of a dam break. Proper understanding of deposition operations has probably hindered adoption of alternative tailings technologies, wheras recent failures of tailings impoundments have had catastrophic consequences. Flow behavior is crucial to understand for effective risk mitigation. Tailings exhibit thixotropic properties-their behavior is a function of the material's stress history. A thixotropic constitutive model has been implemented into an open-source Material Point Method (MPM) framework. The results were validated with previous experimental data at laboratory scale and compared with Bingham rheology with good agreements. Large-scale simulations were done for 2D and 3D cases. The thixotropic model was able to model self-forming channels seen during field scale deposition, which Bingham rheology is unable to capture. Dam break events also scaled differently from laboratory scale experiments with thixotropy. This can possibly be an element that explains longer runouts then initially predicted with standard rheology.